The story is told from the perspective of the Magi, who are described much differently than in the canonical account of their journey. Here there are twelve Magi (perhaps more), they hail from a mythological eastern land named Shir, and the name “Magi,” it is said, derives etymologically from their practice of praying in silence. They knew to follow the star to Bethlehem because they are descendants of Seth, the third child of Adam and Eve, who passed on to them a prophecy told to him by his father Adam. The star appears to the Magi in the Cave of Treasures on the Mountain of Victories. There it transforms into a small, luminous being (clearly Christ, but his precise identity is never explicitly revealed) and instructs them about its origins and their mission. The Magi follow the star to Bethlehem, where it transforms into the infant Jesus. Upon returning to their land, the Magi instruct their people about the star-child. In an epilogue likely secondary to the text, Judas Thomas arrives in Shir, baptizes the Magi and commissions them to preach throughout the world.

2. RESOURCES

3. BIBLIOGRAPHY

3.1 Manuscripts and Editions

3.1.1 Latin

Opus Imperfectum inMatthaeum (a Latin commentary on the Gospel of Matthew with a summary of Rev. Magi).

Hultgard, Anders. “The Magi and the Star: The Persian Background in Texts and Iconography.” Pages 215–25 in “Being Religious and Living through the Eyes”: Studies in Religious Iconography and Iconology. Edited by Peter Schalk and Michael Stausberg. Uppsala: Uppsala University Library, 1998.

Landau, Brent C. “‘One Drop of Salvation from the House of Majesty’: Universal Revelation, Human Mission and Mythical Geography in the Syriac Revelation of the Magi.” Pages 83–103 in The Levant: Crossroads of Late Antiquity. Edited by Ellen B. Aitken and John M. Fossey. Leiden: Brill, 2014.